


A.P. Bio

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Series: High School Science [4]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 5+1 Things, Adoptive mother!Bee, Alternate Universe - High School, Anal Sex, Awkward Sexual Situations, Demisexual!Neil Josten, First Time Blow Jobs, First Times, Hand Jobs, Homophobia, M/M, Sexual Humor, excessive use of lube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-05-16 19:09:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19324294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: In their last year of high school, Andrew and Neil start exploring each other.  It doesn't always go quite as expected.  Or, 5 times intimacy doesn't go according to plan, and one time it does.





	1. Skam

**Author's Note:**

> This is a follow up to Basic Biology (and Chemistry Experiments and the Laws of Physics). The degree of explicitness will vary from chapter to chapter, but while this is not PWP it's definitely more focused on sex than most of my writing. The homophobia tag is for the third chapter, I wanted to give people a heads-up.
> 
> Thank you so much to Nicole @tntwme for the beta, and to Cory @foxsoulcourt for the constant encouragement!

The low hum of the neighbor’s lawn mower seeped through the closed windows.  It lulled Andrew into forgetting that school had started up again, the last year of this familiar stupidity before everything changed.  Neil, lounging on the foot of his bed as he had almost every day for two months, fed into the illusion of unending summer. 

“Here it is,” Neil said, tapping the laptop’s touchpad.  “I can’t believe this is the last episode.”

Andrew sat up a bit straighter, leaning against his headboard.  Neil tucked himself in between Andrew’s knees and leaned back against his chest, resting the laptop on the bed next to them.  “There’s like, a million versions of Skam though. We can watch our way through them.”

“Yeah.”  

The episode started playing, and Andrew’s attention was torn between the screen and the feel of Neil’s body slumped up against him.  As the actors more or less fell into bed, Neil started to squirm, and Andrew tightened his arm around him. Too much more friction and Neil was going to have more of a reason to squirm than watching two guys getting some action on the screen.

Neil reached out and hit the spacebar, freezing the show at a rather delicate moment.  “Have you ever?” 

“Not quite.”  Neil had twisted his neck around so he could look Andrew in the face, and Andrew took that as invitation to lean forward and kiss him.

When they were both breathless, he sat back again.  “You?”

“Huh?”  Neil blinked up from where he had slumped into his lap.  “Oh.” He snort-laughed, as if the idea was ludicrous, as if there weren’t rumors surrounding his love life scattered around the school like homecoming notices.  “Of course not. I’ve barely even kissed anyone but you.” 

Andrew wanted to ask more; to ask if he had ever thought about it.  Ever thought about it with him. He wondered if Neil had a hidden condom stash, and what he would think if he knew Andrew’s was an arm’s length away.  But he settled for tugging him back into place against his chest, and letting his lips press on that ruddy hair.

They started the show playing again.  Andrew tried to pay attention to the subtitles, but he had better luck listening to Neil’s muttered translation.  His stupid hands kept wanting to wander, tracing patterns across Neil’s abdomen, remembering the feel of his skin.

“What are you doing?”  Neil shifted in his arms, and he froze when he realized his fingers had been brushing along Neil’s waist, dangerously close to crossing a line.

He moved his hand into safer territory.  “I wasn’t paying attention.”

Neil tilted his head back and studied him for a moment.  “It’s okay, you know.”

There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room; Andrew’s fingers twitched.  “What do you mean?”

He was pretty sure Neil wasn’t breathing as he settled his hand over Andrew’s, slipping the tips of their fingers just under the band of his jeans.  “I mean it’s okay, if you want to.”

“Okay is not a yes.”

Neil’s face was flushed pink, the skin hot under Andrew’s lips.  “I don’t know how this works,” Neil admitted, turning into the kiss.

It was tempting to be ornery and make Neil say the words.   _ I want you to jack me off. _  No, that didn’t seem right; Neil would never say it.   _ I want you to give me a hand job _ was worse.  Maybe he should just say it.   _ I want to touch you.  I want to make you come. _  Ugh.  He wondered what it sounded like in German, if it was somehow more dignified.  Probably not. It probably just sounded angrier. 

He didn’t know why this had been easier with the other guys.  Maybe because he hadn’t really given a shit either way; maybe because he had always known they were only looking to get off.  He closed his eyes and breathed. Neil smelled like sunblock and sweat; he hadn’t showered before coming over and Andrew thought maybe he should’ve been grossed out but he wasn’t.  

His fingers found the button of Neil’s jeans.  “Can I?” he whispered, smiling a little at the way Neil shivered.

“Yes.”

Not for the first time, Andrew thanked his memory.  It was a blessing and a curse, really, but at least he would go to his grave with that perfect  _ yes _ in his ear.

Miraculously his hand didn’t fumble too much as he undid the button and zipper.  He wasn’t sure which god was in charge of the hopelessly gay. Apollo, maybe. He owed him a sacrifice or something, he decided, as he slid teasing fingers down Neil’s thigh and heard his breath hitch.

The fabric of his boxers was blocking access.  He worked his fingers under the cotton along Neil’s right thigh, finding the crease where his leg joined his body and tracing it up until his wrist cramped.  Abandoning that approach, he opted for the more direct route and breached the elastic along the top. Neil let out a gasp when Andrew wrapped his hand around him, and Andrew dragged his teeth lightly along his earlobe as a reward.

The angle was odd, almost familiar from nights alone but more of a stretch.  He thought about changing that, rolling them face to face, but this position had the unexpected reward of feeling every tiny jerk of Neil’s body, every stifled moan.  

Neil was trembling in his arms and Andrew slowed his pace.  “Is this still okay?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, it’s—” His breath caught when Andrew rolled his wrist.  He was still partially blocked by the damn boxers, so he took his free hand and shoved them down as much as he could, earning what may have been a sigh of relief from Neil now that he wasn’t bumping up against the cloth.  

There still wasn’t much of a view from this angle, but that didn’t really matter.  It could wait. Instead he focused on the feel of him, the quietly desperate sounds, the taste of the soft skin of his neck.  

“Andrew.”  It was the only warning Neil gave before his body went taut and Andrew felt him spill over his hand.  Neil shifted, twisting in his hold until he could press panting kisses to Andrew’s mouth, his jaw, his throat.  

The house phone rang, making Neil jump and look over his shoulder at the door.  Andrew took advantage of the pause to grab the box of tissues off his nightstand to do a quick clean-up.  It wasn’t the most efficient he’d ever been, what with Neil turning his attention back to his neck once the phone had stopped.  And it was all he could do to keep from jumping when Neil rested a hand on his stomach. “Do you want…”

There was a significant risk Andrew was going to come the second Neil touched him, after the performance he’d just witnessed, but he nodded anyway.  “Only if you want to.”

Neil pulled him down into a kiss, his hand brushing so lightly under Andrew’s shirt it tickled.  He edged towards Andrew’s waistband, one finger, then two, dipping below— 

“Neil?”  Bee’s voice floated up the stairs.

Neil shot upright and away from Andrew so quickly it was like he had been burned.  “Yeah?” he called in answer, then tacked on, “Dr. Dobson?” with a grimace at Andrew.

“That was your uncle on the phone.  He said you’re not answering your phone?”

“I think I left it in my car.”

There was a pause that Andrew recognized as Bee trying to sort out if she was being lied to.  “Okay, well, he said you were supposed to be home half an hour ago.”

“Shit,” Neil muttered under his breath with an apologetic look at Andrew.  “I’m so sorry.”

Andrew shrugged; it wasn’t like he was particularly interested in getting off with Bee standing at the bottom of the stairs listening.  Neil scrambled off the bed, zipping up his pants and checking his shirt to make sure there wasn’t any evidence. “See you tomorrow? I’ll make this up to you, I promise.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”  It came out harsh, angrier than he meant it to.  He hated it when it sounded like he was lying when he wasn’t.  But Neil didn’t glare or snap back like Aaron would have, didn’t look hurt or skeptical like Kevin.  He gave Andrew a searching look, and a quick flash of a smile, honest and soft, then disappeared into the hallway.

Andrew flopped back onto his pillows, listening to the low mumble of Bee’s voice filtering through his closed door.  He could hear Neil leaving, then the house settled back into quiet. His book was sitting on the floor next to his bed, but he didn’t pick it up.  There was a restless ache in his groin, and the image of Neil, eyes heavy-lidded and face flushed, danced in his mind. His own hand traced the path Neil’s had been exploring when they’d been interrupted.  It was easy, to replay the past few minutes, to imagine it was his hand on Neil again, or Neil’s hand on him…

After he’d caught his breath, he cleaned up again.  He was going to need to get another box of tissues, but he’d have to wait until Bee wasn’t downstairs if he didn’t want to be lectured about taking precautions.  His laptop was still open, screen long gone black. Waking it up, he studied the image still paused on the screen, the two boys tangled up in sheets and each other.  He remembered one of the lines from earlier in the show.  _ “I’m nervous.”  “So am I.” _

With an emphatic click, he exed out of the episode.  It would wait for another time. 


	2. The Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil and Andrew are assigned a history project together, but researching doesn't go quite according to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to @tntwme for the beta! Warning for excessively horny teenagers.

“You’re driving yourself home today.”  Andrew tossed the keys at Aaron; they bounced off of his chest and fell to the pavement.  

“The fuck?”  Aaron shot him a glare as he bent to snag them.  “What, you planning to commit a crime and need an alibi or something?”

“Yeah, you figured me out.”  Andrew hoisted his bag over his shoulder and headed towards the school, watching the rest of the herd rushing towards the doors.  Like it mattered if he showed up at fucking homeroom on time.  _ Oh no!  I might miss some announcement about the football team! _

Aaron rolled his eyes.  “Seriously, though, you’ve let me drive like, once.”

“Which one of us passed our driving test the first time?”

“Go to hell.”

“Too late,” Andrew said, pushing through the doors.

Aaron snorted.  “At least you don’t have Mazur for English.”  They shoved their way through larger bodies with the ease of long practice to reach their lockers.  That Marissa chick was making out with some random soccer player, smashed against Aaron’s locker. Andrew opened his own, then slammed it closed as hard as he could.  The couple jumped apart; the dude looked ready to fight until he met Andrew’s eyes, then let himself be pulled away. Marissa glared daggers at Andrew as she tugged her boyfriend’s shirt, and he wanted to laugh in her face. 

“But really, how are you getting home?” Aaron asked, spinning the combination on his lock as if there wasn’t Popular Kid Residue smeared all over it.

“I’m working on my History project with Neil.  He’ll drive me home after.”

Aaron huffed.  “History project, right.”  There was probably some sort of school rule against the level of sarcasm that dripped from his voice.  “That what you’re calling it now?”

“What, you think I’m going to blow him in the library?” 

“You probably would, if you could get away with it,” Aaron muttered, practically stepping on his heels as they headed into homeroom.  

Andrew let himself indulge for a moment in that mental image, until Miss LaChapelle called his name for attendance and he tried to shove it away.  Then the damn thought wouldn’t leave his head. It expanded and flourished, developing a plot more intricate than half the books they were reading for English class.  Fucking Aaron. This was going to ruin his whole fucking day.

By the time he got to the library after the last bell, it took all his willpower to feign calm as he dropped his stuff on the floor next to Neil’s chair.  Neil greeted him with a smile that faltered as he took in Andrew’s face. “You okay?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Neil gave him a considering look as he pulled out his notebook.  His hands flipped through to the assignment, fingers long and elegant, and Andrew couldn’t help but think of the previous weekend when Neil had gotten him off.  The way those fingers had wrapped around him, firm but hesitant, slowly becoming more sure...

Cursing under his breath, he found an empty spot in his own notebook.  Neil started talking about the assignment—one of those weird ones that was no doubt supposed to be cool but was instead super annoying, a fake newspaper of historical events written from a modern perspective.  Andrew tried to focus.  

“...thinking maybe the main headline could be something with the laws surrounding the Native American population at the time?  I mean, I don’t even know what they were, really, there’s jack shit about it in the textbook.”

One part of Andrew’s brain told him this was an excellent idea.  The other ninety two percent was imagining laying Neil out on the table in front of him.  They still hadn’t seen each other fully naked; that didn’t mean that his brain hadn’t worked overtime, filling in what parts he hadn’t seen.  He wondered if Neil would sound different if it was his mouth coaxing him along instead of his hand. What it would feel like to push inside him?  But the library tables probably weren’t the best place to figure that out.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” he replied, a beat or three too late.  “And maybe one of the other articles could be about slavery?”

“Hmm, yeah, that makes sense.  There are probably some parallels there.  Not that we would know, given that Native issues are like, barely discussed.”

They split up and dug through the stacks.  Andrew’s initial digging didn’t find much useful; he turned the corner and almost ran into Neil, who was holding a small stack of books.  “Why can’t we just research this online?” Neil grumbled. “These books are kind of awful.”

Andrew glanced around.  There was nobody nearby; the library was nearly empty this early in the year.  He hooked his fingers in the collar of Neil’s shirt and tugged him down. He hadn’t figured out how Neil always seemed to taste of strawberries.  It wasn’t chapstick, it was just him, and Andrew thought he could go his whole life without ever tasting anything else.

A rattling thud interrupted them; the books, tumbled to the floor.  Neil laughed and bent to pick them up, with no consideration for what effect that image had on Andrew.  He was pretty certain he’d seen something just like this online a while back, only with a whole lot fewer clothes.  

By some sort of Herculean effort he managed to turn his attention to the shelves.  There were a couple more books near the bottom that might be useful also. He crouched to grab them, very determinedly not looking in Neil’s direction.  

They worked in relative quiet for a while, passing books back and forth as they copied out sections that could be useful.  It turned out that white men were, spoiler alert, even worse than Andrew had ever realized, and his anger worked as a distraction for a while.  Until, that was, he looked at Neil to see his teeth set in his lip as he scanned a page.

He stood abruptly; Neil glanced up at him, expression wary.  “Come on.”

Neil followed without hesitation, even when Andrew left the library and all their stuff behind.  The halls were empty; Neil’s hand was warm in his as he towed him into the bathroom. “Yes or no?” 

“Yes,” Neil breathed, his eyes fluttering closed as he bent his head to meet Andrew’s mouth.    

His hands followed well-remembered paths along scarred skin.  Neil broke away to mouth down his throat, finally latching on where his neck joined his shoulder, and Andrew gritted his teeth against the moan that threatened.  Shoving Neil back against the door, he rutted against him, the friction buying relief and increasing the torment at the same time. Judging by Neil’s gasp, he wasn’t alone.  “Can I blow you?” he whispered against Neil’s cheek.

Neil pulled away from where he was nibbling along Andrew’s neck.  “Do you really want to?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

Those damn fingers found their way into Andrew’s hair and pulled him up into a kiss, long and lingering and searching.  Part of Andrew wished Neil wasn’t such a quick study when it came to this stuff; he still didn’t know how he could be so completely taken apart just by a tongue in his mouth.  When Neil finally pulled away and murmured, “Yes,” in his ear, it took him a moment to remember what he’d even asked.

He had condoms in his bag—even flavored ones, after his one miserable experience with the bitterness of shitty lube—but when he went to reach for it he realized his bag was still sitting in the library.  “Shit.” The other option seemed very appealing; after all, Neil said he was a virgin and Andrew believed him. But he could picture Bee’s disappointment if she found out. “I need to go get my bag.”

Neil’s confusion was short-lived; his smile was devilish.  “Let’s go.”

They half-ran through the hallways, breathless with laughter.  Neil kicked up the speed as they rounded the corner to the library, only to skid to a stop that had Andrew nearly crashing into him.  “Oh, shit.”

The lights in the library were off; Andrew reached for the doors, knowing it was useless but needing to feel the resistance anyway.  “Son of a bitch.”

Neil grumbled as he rubbed his face, hooking his hands behind his neck as he stared at the locked doors.  “I didn’t realize it had gotten that late.”

“There has to be someone around who can unlock it for us.”

“I mean, I could,” Neil said, that impish smile making a reappearance, “but my picks are in my bag.”

Andrew stared at him, a startled laugh punching out of him.  He knew how to pick locks; he’d learned in juvie; but he had no idea how or why Neil had learned.  Before he could ask, Neil had turned back down the hall the way they had come. There was nothing for Andrew to do but follow.

It was odd, walking through the school this late, passing dark, silent rooms.  For a moment, it felt like just the two of them, alone in the world. Like everyone else had disappeared, like some sort of dream, or apocalypse.  They passed a bank of windows, and Andrew was startled to realize everything looked normal. A handful of cars dotted the parking lot; the sun still shone, though it was hanging low in the sky.  

Faint music could be heard from around a distant corner.  Neil sped up, until Andrew almost had to jog to keep up. The custodian was mopping the hallway in front of the band room, an old-fashioned boom box perched on his cart.  “Hey, Mr. Frank!” Neil called.  

“Hey, Neil,” Mr. Frank answered, an easy smile on his face.  “What’re you doing here so late?”

Neil shrugged apologetically, looking like the picture of innocence.  “Got locked out of the library. All my stuff is in there, I didn’t realize they locked up this early.”

“What were you doing—”  He spotted Andrew, his eyes zeroing in on his neck, and laughed.  “You know what, never mind. I can let you in. Just this once, though, you hear?”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you.”  They walked back through the corridors, Neil and the custodian chatting like old friends while he pulled out a key ring.  “Thanks, Mr. Frank,” Neil said, as the pair of them grabbed their notebooks and shoved them into their bags. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Keep out of trouble, you hear?”  Mr. Frank laughed. “Never mind, that’s impossible for you.”

“Aw, c’mon, I never cause trouble.”

“Didn’t say you caused it,” the custodian grunted, shoving the key back in the lock.  “Just that you always end up in it. That one,” he said, gesturing at Andrew, “that’s the one what causes it.  It’s always the quiet ones.”

Andrew blinked at him and didn’t respond.  He’d never gotten in trouble keeping his mouth shut, after all.  Neil grinned up at the old man. “You don’t know Andrew very well if you think he’s quiet.”

Mr. Frank waved a friendly hand at them.  “Get out of here, go do whatever it is you were doing somewhere else.”

Neil took his hand as they wandered out towards the cars.  The giddy need was gone; Andrew felt settled for the first time all day.  “Next time we won’t be so stupid,” Neil said, and Andrew nudged him with a shoulder.  “Speaking of which, it’s homecoming this weekend.”

“I already went to prom with you, I am  _ not _ doing homecoming.”

Laughing, Neil swung their hands between them.  “No, I wouldn’t ask you to make that sacrifice, you’ve done enough.  But I thought maybe we could go out? Like, to a movie or something? Everyone else will be here, so we can really be alone.”

Alone.  Not just holed up in Andrew’s room, trying not to be overheard by Aaron or Bee.  Andrew swallowed against the sudden dryness in his mouth. “Okay.”

“Okay is not a yes.”

Andrew rolled his eyes and pressed a quick kiss to Neil’s shoulder as they stopped in front of the car.  “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments and kudos, they give me life! I am really excited to see what y'all think of this one!


	3. The Movie Theater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andrew and Neil go to the movies, but Neil's plans for the rest of their date get disrupted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for homophobic language/behavior, and for a subtle sort of self-harm ideation. This is not quite so fluffy as the rest.
> 
> Thanks as always to @tntwme for the beta, and @foxsoulcourt for the consistent cheerleading!

“That was so bad,” Andrew said, shaking his head as they walked out of the theater.  The air outside was heavy, as sticky as syrup after the air-conditioning. Summer, trying to hold on past the turning of the leaves.

“I liked it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”  Andrew turned to face Neil, walking backwards through the parking lot, trying to catch Neil’s expression in the lights.  “They ruined the entire franchise, in like, two hours.”

“I don’t know, I thought it was really good.  And come on, they had a gay character! That’s kind of amazing, isn’t it?”

Andrew stumbled over a nonexistent rock and almost wiped out.  Neil reached a hand out to steady him. Once he had his feet under him he linked their fingers and pulled Neil to a stop.  “You can’t seriously—oh, you’re fucking with me, aren’t you.”

Neil laughed.  “Yeah, it was pretty bad.”

“You are such an asshole.”  It was impossible to keep his voice flat with the laugh that was bubbling under the surface, but he found he didn’t care.  He’d lost his street cred with Neil long ago.

“Last time I checked you liked that about me.”

He did.  Apollo help him, he did.

Neil yielded easily to the little tug on his fingers, bending to brush a kiss against Andrew’s lips.  It was supposed to end there, but somehow it never seemed to. They made it all of another step towards Neil’s car before they were kissing again, and when they finally reached it Andrew pushed Neil up against the door.  The backseat was right there; but it was too risky to take it there. He didn’t know how far they would go, and there were too many other cars, too many lights for what he was imagining. 

“Oh, gross,” came a voice from somewhere.  Andrew let himself pretend for one glorious moment that the asshole wasn’t talking about him, but then:  “Check out the fags.”

Neil froze, not pulling away, just going rigid against Andrew’s mouth.  Andrew felt his fingers digging into Neil’s side, but he couldn’t force them to relax.  Only when the scuff of shoes on pavement came closer did Neil turn away, pivoting to place himself between the handful of looming teenagers and Andrew.  “Is there a problem?” Neil said, his voice dripping with false politeness.  

“Yeah, you’re a fucking problem,” the tallest of the boys said.  One of his buddies flanking him laughed and slapped him on the back, as if he had said something clever.  Andrew didn’t recognize any of them. Probably not from Palmetto High, then. They wouldn’t know his reputation.

He could teach them; despite their size advantage, he could do it.  The ringleader was the first target. Big as he was, his stance was open, it would be easy enough to take his knees out.  The guy to his right was fixated on Neil, a hungry sort of disgust on his face. He’d be next. Then there was the third, who was hanging back a step, staring at his feet.  That one would probably stay out of it…

Neil must have felt him tense as he did his calculations; he squeezed his fingers in warning.  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, so pleasantly even Andrew almost bought it. “How exactly am I causing you a problem?”

“You’re here,” the right-hand kid sneered, gesturing at him.  “You exist.”

“And that’s a problem for you because…”

The two guys exchanged glances.  Andrew could practically hear their thoughts churning, as if they expected it to be obvious what the issue was.  “You must be stupid,” ringleader guy said.

“Nope,” Neil said cheerfully.  “Near the top of my class, actually.  You?”

Ringleader guy bristled, hearing the insult beneath the words.  The third guy cleared his throat and took a step closer. “C’mon man.  We’re going to miss the movie.”

“This fucker—”

“I know, but we already paid.  And I owe you a pack of Twizzlers, remember?”  He pushed between his friends, putting his back to Neil and Andrew.  “Remember?” There was something else beneath his words, some sort of warning Andrew couldn’t decipher.  Ringleader dude blinked, glancing at his friend before glaring back at Neil.

“They’re not worth it anyway.”  He spat in Neil’s direction, but it landed on the ground at Andrew’s feet.  Andrew could feel Neil trembling faintly, whether from fear or fury he couldn’t tell.  The trio turned away, the third guy shooting them an apologetic shrug before following the others into the theater.  

It wasn’t until the doors had closed behind the assholes that Neil moved, taking a deep, shuddering breath before dropping his head to rest against Andrew’s.  “I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck are you apologizing for?”  Bitterness flooded his mouth, and he wheeled around, slamming his knuckles into the panel of Neil’s car.  The pain shot through him as his skin split. It was an odd sort of release, and all of a sudden he could feel the pavement under his soles again.  He hadn’t even realized that he couldn’t before.

“Andrew…”  Neil’s voice was thick, and when Andrew looked up at him his eyes were too bright.  

Andrew shook his head and turned away.  “We should go.”

They were silent as they drove out of the parking lot.  Andrew studied his knuckles in the intervals of the streetlights.  The blood was already drying sticky on his skin. He prodded at the area, relishing the dull throb that crawled up his forearm.

He almost didn’t notice when Neil turned down the wrong street.  This one had bigger, fancier houses than Bee’s, manicured lawns and those mockeries of fences that did nothing to keep anybody out.  “Where are we going?”

“Just wait.”

They reached a grove of trees with a dirt road, just wide enough for Neil’s car.  He pulled into it and bumped along until they came to a turnaround. “This leads to the golf course,” he said, putting the car in park.  “I thought maybe, since we’re not expected back for a bit…” He leaned across the console, an invitation in the moonlight highlighting the curve of his lips.

Andrew wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss him or punch him.  He looked back at his hand, but he could barely see the blood; just a smudge of darkness smeared across the pallor.  It looked like a scream. “Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

Andrew waved his hand behind him.  “That. You talked to them like you fucking owed them something.”

“I did not!”

“You did.  You just...you let them get away with it.”

Neil stared at him.  “What was I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know!”  He was shouting, he realized, when the echo reverberated through the car.  “Not that. Not let them walk away.”

“You can’t fight all the assholes, there’s too many of them.”

“How else do we get rid of them?”

“What, you think punching away hate one homophobe at a time is going to work?  It won’t. It’ll just land you in juvie again and I can’t deal with that.”

Andrew clenched his fists, welcoming the stretch in his knuckles.  He wanted to bleed. “Do you agree with them?”

“What?”

“Is this—do you think it’s gross?”

“Jesus, Andrew, no.  What kind of a question is that?”

But there were moments where Andrew couldn’t tell what Neil was thinking.  When he would remember asking Neil if he was ace, and Neil’s answer.  _ I don’t know what I am.  _  Doubt crept in like fog, cold and insidious.

He didn’t know how long he stared at the dark trees outside the window before Neil asked, “What do you want to do?”  There was something in the quiet of his voice that pulled Andrew’s eyes to him; he was trembling again, faint but unmistakable, even in the dark.  Andrew wanted to reach out, to touch him, to pull him into his arms and hold him close until it stopped.

“Take me home.”

Neil blinked and looked away.  “Okay.”

Andrew hoped Bee would be in bed, but of course she was reading on the couch.  At least her back was to him as he crept through the front door, closing it silently behind him.  He was almost to the stairs when she called, “Andrew? You okay?”

“Fine.”

That was the wrong answer, of course—not an Andrew answer—and it had Bee on her feet and in the entryway before he could make it another step.  She scanned him from head to toe, her mouth tightening as she took in his hand and the smears of blood on his jeans that he hadn’t noticed until right then.  “Hot chocolate float?” she asked.

He wanted to say no.  His room beckoned, the quiet comfort of his bed, the soothing darkness; but the creature that was still snarling under his sternum would never let him submit to that sort of calm.  “Peanut butter swirl ice cream?”

“I think we have enough left.  Go ahead and get washed up.”

The soap stung as he rubbed it into the torn skin.  He watched the pink swirling down the drain until it finally ran clear, then grabbed a clean towel and wrapped it around his hand.  Bee was waiting in the kitchen over a pot of chocolate chips and milk, tendrils of steam beginning to curl in the air. He sat at the counter and watched as she bandaged his knuckles, then whisked the mixture and poured it into the two mugs.  One generous scoop of ice cream later, and she was leaning against the counter, fixing him with those damn steady eyes.  

“Did you and Neil get into a fight?”

“I would never hit Neil,” he snapped, her words impaling him like a knife.  

“I didn’t think you did, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

He poked at the ice cream melting into his chocolate.  “No. Yes. Kind of, I guess.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

He didn’t, not really, but the words came stumbling out anyway.  She listened, as she always did. It was both the best and worst thing about being adopted by a psychologist, really.  When he was done, he shoveled a spoonful of his chocolate-vanilla-peanut butter goo into his mouth and waited.

“What do you think Neil should have done instead?”

“Let me handle it.”  

“You don’t think he did an admirable job?”

_ Of course he did, _ he wanted to say.   _ That’s not the point. _   He took another mouthful to buy himself time.  “He shouldn’t have had to.”

Bee hummed.  “That’s true, of course.  But people are a mixed bag.  Some people are awful just to be awful.  Sometimes it’s ignorance, or bad training from their families.  And sometimes they’re just young, and need to get more exposure to the world.  Neil’s right, you can’t go around hitting everyone who’s a jerk, it’ll be exhausting.  Not to mention illegal.”

“Unfortunately.”

She laughed and took a sip.  “Besides, do you actually think that would teach them anything?”

“It’ll teach them to keep their mouth shut.”

“Maybe.  Or maybe it’ll make them think they’re right, that gay people are bad.”

He slammed his spoon down.  “I’m so sick of that shit. I’m so sick of the idea that the victim always needs to be the one who behaves peacefully.  Like, what the hell is wrong with fighting back? We were just minding our own business.” His eyes were burning, and he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.  

“Nothing.  There’s nothing wrong with fighting back, and if they had gotten physical I would hope you would do exactly that.  But Neil wasn’t passive, no matter how it might have seemed that he was. He just used a bit of a different weapon.”

Quiet settled over the room, the hum of the dishwasher background music to the swirl of Andrew’s thoughts.  His mug was empty, and he didn’t really remember finishing it. He wanted to go back to an hour ago, and give into that impulse in the car.  He wanted to feel Neil, warm and solid under his hands. “I’m going to bed.”

“Okay.  I’ll wait up for Aaron.”

Right.  Like she needed to worry about Aaron.  Aaron, the twin who nobody bothered because of his popular girlfriend and his vicious brother.  Aaron, the one who had inherited the easy side of the genetics, even though they were supposed to be the same.

He stripped off his clothes and pulled on sweats.  His phone remained stubbornly silent; he shouldn’t be surprised, after how he left things.  Everything felt heavy. But though the fatigue pulled at him, he couldn’t quite find sleep. Even after he heard Aaron come home, there was something restless prowling under his skin.

Without thinking, he snagged his phone off the nightstand.  It was late; Neil was probably asleep. His thumbs tapped against the dark screen.   _ I’m sorry. _   No; he was an asshole, but he couldn’t send that.   _ Thank you. _   That wasn’t right either.   _ I don’t want to go back to juvie. _   He turned his phone on and typed it in.

Three dots appeared immediately.   _ You shouldn’t have to because of a useless bag of dicks _

Something tugged at the corner of his mouth.   _ A bag of dicks isn’t always so useless you know _

He imagined Neil’s quiet laugh, then laughed himself at the response he got.   _ Those guys’ dicks were.  Yours on the other hand _

_ You wanna test that out tomorrow _

Three dots appeared, hovering for an unnecessary length of time, before:   _ Yes _

Tomorrow.  He clicked his phone off and shoved it under his pillow.  Tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank you all enough for the comments and kudos! I hope you continue to enjoy this, though this chapter was a bit hard to write and I can imagine a bit hard to read. More fun exploration lies ahead!


	4. The Amusement Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Determined to make up for the incident at the movie theater, Andrew shows Neil a glimpse of his childhood before Bee. They take the opportunity to further their exploration of each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter so far, and the smuttiest, so I hope you all enjoy! Thanks as always to Nicole @tntwme for the beta!

“Wait.”

Andrew shoved his feet into his shoes and snagged the keys off the little hook by the door.  He was just cracking open the door when Aaron’s hand came over his shoulder and shoved it closed.  “Damnit, Andrew. Why do you get the car today?”

“You had it yesterday.”  He pulled harder and the door creaked open a few inches.  Aaron shifted to lean his weight against it.

“I’m supposed to take Katelyn out to lunch.  I was just about to leave. We were going to study together.”

“Not my problem.”  He checked Aaron out of the way with his shoulder and made his escape.

“Why are you always such an asshole?  Your boyfriend has his own car, make him drive.”

Andrew waved his hand at Aaron, key ring hooked over his extended middle finger.  He wasn’t going to tell him what he had planned. Aaron would no doubt tell Bee, who wouldn’t stop him, exactly, but he’d have to deal with her Concerns.  Right now, that was not on the agenda.

Neil was waiting for him.  He slid into the passenger seat before Andrew could even put the car in park, something a little tight about his smile.   Andrew backed out of the driveway, waiting until they were on the road before asking, “Did you bring them?”

"Yeah.  Dare I ask where we’re going?”

“Somewhere with no useless bags of dicks, I promise you that.”

Neil laughed, and something in Andrew’s chest loosened just a little bit.  “Maybe just one useful one?” Neil asked, snagging Andrew’s hand off the gear shift and bringing it to his mouth.

Andrew hummed.  “I was kind of hoping for two.”

A glance out of the corner of his eye showed rich color rising on Neil’s face.  He wondered if he had pushed too hard, after all the shit that had gone down the night before, but then Neil cleared his throat.  “Yeah, two would be good.” Andrew turned onto the highway and punched the gas.

They play-argued a bit more about the terrible movie, then Neil queued up some weird-ass music Andrew had never heard.  The hour drive flew by. Andrew almost missed the exit, slamming the brakes and cutting across two lanes to make it. He felt like an idiot, but it had been years since he’d been here, and some of the landmarks had changed.  Hanging a left at the exit, he drove through neighborhoods that got increasingly more familiar. Spotting a gas station with a convenience store attached, he pulled in.

“What’s your favorite amusement park food?” he asked over the jangle of the door.

“Uh, I don’t have one.”

“You are a pathetic excuse for a human being.”

Neil huffed and elbowed him.  “Mom never took me to one. Uncle Stuart’s taken me to carnivals and stuff, but I’ve never been to like, a real amusement park.”

“Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you.”  Andrew wandered through the aisles, snagging some shitty bagged popcorn, some gummy bears, and some roasted peanuts still in the shell before going to the counter.  There he added a couple of hot dogs and two giant Slushies, one blue and one red. Andrew stuffed the packaged food in his backpack, and Neil sat the remaining few minutes of the drive with the hot dogs cradled in his hands.

The sign had been painted over, the original colors bleeding through the thin coat of white.  The cracking parking lot was deserted, grass growing up in a spiderweb pattern through the asphalt.  Andrew scanned around for a place to tuck the car, settling for the shade of the old ticket building.  It would be hard to spot from the road there. “What is this?” Neil asked, looking at the blistered paint of the ticket stand, the skeletons of rides rising up against the sky behind it.  “Where are we?”

“If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not helping you.”

Neil followed him along the fenceline until they got to a padlocked gate.  “Ready to do your magic?” Andrew asked.

Huffing, Neil handed the Slushies to Andrew and pulled the lockpicks out of his pocket.  “If I get caught, you’re bailing me out.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever you—showoff,” he amended, raising an eyebrow as the lock fell open.  Neil bowed with a sarcastic little flourish. He pushed the gate open, carefully closing it behind them and reaching through to arrange the lock to look like it was closed.

“So this is an amusement park,” Neil said, looking up at the metal rails towering overhead.  

“Well, a dead one.”  Andrew set the Slushies down on a pollen-caked picnic table, handing Neil one of the hot dogs.  They wandered through as they ate their shitty gas station hot dogs, passing the waterslide long gone dry, the log ride with its cracking plastic logs.  

“This is officially the creepiest place I have ever been,” Neil said, gazing up at the latticework of the roller coaster.  “And that’s saying something.” He finished his hot dog and poked at the ramp that led up to the track. Shooting a grin at Andrew over his shoulder he started up, the metal clanging under his feet as he picked up speed.

“Fuck,” Andrew muttered under his breath before following.  It felt solid enough, but he clung to the inner rail as he climbed up the switchback.  Neil was waiting at the top, leaning over the guard wall to look up at where the track hovered overhead.  Unbelievably, the cars still sat there, lined up as if waiting for ghostly patrons to get in. Or maybe waiting for them.

“Look,” Neil said, oddly quiet, pointing up at something overhead.  Andrew’s stomach was in his throat, and he closed his eyes as he stepped to his side.  Craning his neck, he opened them to see what Neil was pointing at; it was a huge bird of prey, perched on the rail, staring back at them.  Andrew wasn’t sure what it was, with its black-tipped yellow beak and mottled brown and white feathers. It cocked its head, studying them with pale brown eyes, before spreading wings that were wider than he was tall and launching into the sky.

Neil’s fingers found his as they watched the bird soar away, into the deep gray cloud that hovered over the river.  Before Andrew could pull him down into a kiss, Neil leaned over the barrier, looking at the ground twenty feet below.  “I wonder if we could like, walk on the track.” He made like he was going to swing his leg over the padlocked gate that used to let people through, but Andrew yanked his arm, backing up until his ass hit the line divider.  Neil stumbled after him, laughing until he took in Andrew’s face. “You okay?”

Andrew gritted his teeth, swallowing the bile that had risen at the brief glimpse of the impending fall.  “I don’t like heights.”

Neil blinked at him.  “I didn’t know that.” He started down the ramp, waiting for Andrew to follow.  “What rides do you like, then?”

“Bumper cars.”

Neil nudged him with his elbow.  “That explains the way you drive.”

“Fuck you.”  But he pulled Neil down to a kiss without stopping their descent.  He missed his mouth at first, getting just the corner, and he could taste Neil’s smile.  Once back on solid ground, Neil took off in a jog, dragging Andrew breathlessly behind him.  They headed in a zig zag towards where the carousel stood, beautiful and silent and oddly mournful.  The bright colors were still crisp, the paint barely touched by sun or rain; it seemed to mock the peeling corpses of the other attractions.

Andrew picked his way through the animals and benches until he found his favorite.  The lion was still a brilliant golden yellow; the teeth still gleamed white in a silent roar.  He climbed onto its black-and-silver saddle, settling in behind the post that harpooned its shoulders.  Neil clambered aboard the dappled gray horse that was frozen mid-prance next to it. For a moment, Andrew thought he could hear the organ music playing, but it was just an echo in his brain.

“How do you know about this place?” Neil asked.

“Aaron and I had a foster home a few blocks away.  We used to listen to all the people screaming on the rides.  Sometimes they had concerts here.” He shook his head. “Shitty, shitty concerts.  But we could hear them from the house if the windows were open.”

“Did you at least get to visit?”

“For a school trip.  One of the other foster homes took us here a couple of times too.  I guess they got some sort of discount if they brought us, so their kids could go cheaper.”

Neil toyed at a ridge in the horse’s sculpted mane for a minute.  “Is it weird? Seeing it like this?”

Andrew stared out across the empty landscape.  It was easy to remember it, crowded with bored adults and squealing kids.  It had always felt...fake, somehow. Like the 50s sitcoms that used to come up on Saturday morning TV, black and white and full of canned laughter; a facade, put on to fool the masses into forgetting that the atomic bomb had been dropped and there was no going back.  Those shows had always kind of made his skin crawl, but he had watched them anyway.

The amusement park told a different lie.  It was a temple to the myth of happy families, and he remembered sitting on this exact lion, hating the illusion and wanting it anyway.  There was something more honest about this abandoned emptiness. It owned its failure, at least.

“I knew it closed, there was a thing about it online last year.”  He shrugged at his own non-answer and slid off the lion. “Come on.”

Snagging their melting Slushies off the picnic table, they wandered through the boarded up booths that had once held games and cheap souvenirs.  Neil picked the lock on one, a shooting game that Andrew recalled had had enormous stuffed foxes as the ultimate prize. But the booth was empty save for dust and spiders.  They locked it back up and meandered on.

Andrew was staring down towards the glimpse of the river just visible through the gaps in rides when Neil let out a laugh like a bark and jogged ahead.  Andrew pulled up abruptly when he saw Neil’s target. “No. No fucking way.”

“You really don’t want to make out in the Tunnel of Love?”  Neil climbed into the stupid boat more carefully than Andrew would have expected, settling to a seat.  The thing didn’t even rock.

“That water is disgusting.  It’s developing its own lifeforms.  Soon it’s going to take over the world.”

“So we don’t touch the water.  We wouldn’t want to start the apocalypse or anything.”

Andrew looked from the bright orange boat into the darkness of the tunnel.  “It doesn’t even work.”

“I know,” Neil shrugged, patting the seat next to him.  Andrew sighed and reached out with a foot, prodding the edge of the boat.  “You don’t have to. I just thought it was funny.”

Andrew stepped into the boat; it seemed solid under his feet.  Wedging himself between Neil’s knees, he cupped his jaw and bent to kiss him.  He lost track of how long he stood there, lost track of everything but the taste of Neil’s mouth, the feel of his hair under his fingers, the heat of Neil’s hands on his sides.  “You know what people really did in these, right?” he asked, when they finally broke apart.

Neil was looking up at him, lips parted, eyes wide and something soft, too soft, in their depths.  “What do you want to do?”

Andrew dropped to his knees in answer.  Neil leaned forward and kissed him before he could do anything else; something in Andrew’s head whispered that maybe Neil didn’t want this.  He slid his hands under Neil’s shirt, feeling the lean muscles in his back and the groove of his spine, before breaking the kiss, leaving his hands firmly where they were.  “What do you want me to do?”

“I’m okay—I’m good with whatever you’re thinking.”

There was no lie in his eyes, just that same damn softness.  “I thought you weren’t into this shit.”

Neil snorted, the corner of his mouth ticking up.  “If I wasn’t into this, I wouldn’t be here.” His hands found Andrew’s jaw; a thumb stroked his cheek, and it was all Andrew could do not to close his eyes and lean into it like a cat.  “Uncle Stuart keeps sending me all these links about sexuality. I don’t think that’s normal, is it? For like, a parental figure?”

Andrew turned his head to press a kiss to Neil’s palm.  “I don’t have any kind of frame of reference. Bee taught Aaron and I to put condoms on bananas when we were like, thirteen.”  

Neil’s eyes widened and he laughed.  “No fruitily-transmitted-diseases for you, then.”

“Nope.  We are a solidly FTD-free house.”

“Good to know.”  He dragged his fingers against Andrew’s scalp, sending a shiver down his back.  “That can’t be comfortable.”

The fiberglass bottom was digging into Andrew’s knees, and his feet were starting to go numb where they were wedged against the front of the boat.  “It’s not,” he admitted, leaning forward to press an open-mouthed kiss to Neil’s abdomen, earning a tightening of fingers in his hair. It was worth it though, having Neil this close.  He kissed the bottom edge of the swath of scarring, then lower, just above the button of his jeans.  

It was tempting to stay there, despite the discomfort, but he remembered a stretch of grass down close to the river, tucked behind fancy bushes where he had hidden once upon a time.  He lurched to his tingling feet with all the grace of a newborn hippo and grabbed Neil’s hand. “Come on.”

The bushes were right where he had remembered, ragged and overgrown but still obeying the constraints of their decorative curved shape.  Beyond, the grass was knee high, faded from cool nights but still soft and sweet-smelling. Neil flopped on his back, pulling Andrew down with him.  

There was definitely something to be said for this, for laying beneath the darkening sky with Neil sprawled out under him.  For the little hitches of breath, barely audible over the background music of the river. For the way the breeze swirled across his back, chill compared to the heat of Neil’s hands.  He couldn’t tell which of the two caused the shiver that ran over him. 

Would he ever get used to the feel of Neil’s teeth on his neck?  Current data indicated no; not when it was followed by the whisper of his name on oversensitive skin.  It was too much, always too fucking much, and he pulled away before his scanty composure could disappear altogether.  Though kissing his way down that body, feeling Neil squirm under his mouth, didn’t do a whole lot to help his self-control.  

He stopped with his hands on Neil’s fly, and Neil let his head drop back in the grass with a muttered curse.  “Fuck, yes.”

Andrew laughed, the huff of air against Neil’s abdomen earning him a twitch.  Not bothering to unbutton Neil’s jeans, Andrew shoved his hand into the stupidly loose waistband, teasing his fingers along the head of his half-hard cock.  Neil hissed something unintelligible, his hips bucking up into Andrew’s hand. Andrew did it again, and again, until Neil was writhing under his feather-light touch.  Only then did Andrew free him from the trap of fabric, pulling his jeans first over his hips, then after a moment’s consideration all the way off. Boxers followed, sailing through the air to land on a bedraggled bush.

“Hey!” Neil protested, but his indignation disappeared when Andrew knelt between his knees, fumbling in the backpack that lay half-forgotten next to them.  Neil touched Andrew’s hair when he emerged with a condom. “You sure?”

“Of course I am.”  Andrew shook the packet, meeting Neil’s steady eyes.  “Are you?”

“Yeah.”  Neil propped himself up on his elbows, watching as Andrew stroked him a few times before tearing open the foil.  Andrew paused for a moment, letting himself marvel at the strange beauty laid out in front of him in a rucked-up t-shirt, the perfect lines of muscle, the brushstrokes of scarring, the flush to the skin that might have been hunger or embarrassment.  There was a hitch to Neil’s breathing as Andrew rolled the condom on with easy familiarity, and when Andrew looked up there was an intensity to Neil’s face he rarely saw. “You liked watching me put a condom on you?”

“I did,” Neil said, smiling that rare smile that had taken up residence somewhere in Andrew’s chest.  “Bet I’ll like it even more when it’s on you.”

Fuck, Neil was going to be the death of him.  He bent down to kiss his lips, then his throat, trailing his mouth lower and lower.  It had been a while since he’d done this, and he sent up a silent promise of some shitty gas station popcorn to Apollo if only he wouldn’t fucking gag.

Neil cursed when Andrew took him in his mouth.  Fingers found their way into his hair, not pulling, not trying to stop him, just—seeking.  Andrew worked his tongue along the underside of the head, ignoring the weird artificial sweetness of the latex in favor of listening to Neil’s panting breaths.  It was a revelation, watching Neil like this. The flush spreading up his neck, the way his teeth set in his lip, his hand grasping desperately at the grass next to them.  Andrew took him a little deeper, then deeper still, until he met his own hand at the base.

Something cold and wet splattered the back of his neck, and for an absurd moment he thought Neil had come, before logic set in.  The rain started to fall a bit harder, staining Neil’s shirt in a Pollock pattern. From his position between Neil’s legs, he could see droplets gleaming like diamonds in his eyelashes. 

A roll of thunder made them both jump, and that popcorn was definitely getting sacrificed when Andrew managed not to gag.  He pulled off. “What do you want to do.”

“I don’t know, I’m so close,” Neil said, voice strained with need and apology.  Andrew shrugged into the deepening rain and swallowed Neil down as far as he could.  It didn’t take much longer before Neil was gasping, his fingers tightening almost painfully in Andrew’s hair as he came.  Neil was trembling, and Andrew dragged himself up his body. His own arousal was straining in his jeans but he ignored it for the moment, losing himself in the panting kisses Neil was giving him.  

Another roll of thunder, closer this time, had them pulling part.  “Shit,” Neil muttered. “I think we better make a run for it.” One side of his mouth pulled up into a cheeky grin as he registered Andrew’s dilemma.  “We’ll be safe in the car for a bit.”

The groan was impossible to stifle as Andrew pushed to his feet.  Neil grimaced as he took off the condom and pulled on his soaking wet boxers.  “Well, this’ll be pleasant to sit in on the way home.”

“You could go commando,” Andrew said, and Neil laughed as he shimmied into his jeans and shoved his feet into his squishy shoes.  The proferred hand was impossible to resist, and soon they were darting across the empty asphalt towards the fenceline.  

They made it to the car, and Andrew would have headed around to the driver’s seat but Neil opened the backdoor and all but shoved him in.  Andrew arched an eyebrow at him as he crawled in after, but before he could make a snide comment their mouths were crushed together.

It didn’t take him long to respond, not with the heat that had still been simmering under his skin, undoused by the rain.  Neil’s hand worked its way under his shirt, tracing patterns on his stomach while he kissed him breathless. “Do you have another condom?” Neil asked, when they finally broke apart.

Andrew froze.  He had never let his previous hookups blow him; he still didn’t know why.  It wasn’t like they hadn’t been willing. Maybe it was that it had felt so transactional; maybe it was that he hadn’t really trusted either of them, though they hadn’t given him a reason not to.  But this was Neil. Neil, whose whole peculiar soul was shining in his eyes as he waited for the answer. Neil, who gave and gave and never took.

“Yes.”

He reached down to rummage through the backpack that he’d flung on the floormat.  It took longer than it should have, with Neil mouthing along his neck, but he found the packets by feel and pulled one out.  Neil watched, rapt, as Andrew undid his jeans and rolled it on.

“I was right,” Neil murmured, pressing a kiss to his jaw.  “It is hotter watching you put it on yourself.”

They shifted around under the heavy patter of rain on the roof, trying to find a comfortable position.  Lucky they were both small. It ended up with Andrew leaning against the door, one leg up on the seat, the other on the floor, while Neil sprawled out between them.  “My experience with this includes being on the receiving end one time, about five minutes ago,” Neil said, hesitantly pressing a kiss to Andrew’s stomach. “So you’ll need to tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”

With that, he licked his lips and took the head of Andrew’s cock in his mouth.  Andrew’s first thought was, _warm._   As with the first handjob, Neil was hesitant at first, but he was so fucking beautiful looking up at Andrew that it was almost enough.  After a little while, Neil started moving his hand, then his tongue; Andrew almost gave himself a concussion with how hard his head hit the window when Neil swallowed around him.  It was just starting to get somewhere when Neil tried to take him down too far and gagged. He pulled off and retched for a minute, one hand still wrapped around the base of Andrew’s cock, then gave him a sheepish look.  “Sorry.”

“Happens to everyone at first,” Andrew said, as if he was some sort of expert.  It had, of course, happened to him, more than once. Neil gave him a few tentative strokes before trying again, staying more at the head, letting his hand do most of the work.  The pressure was building when Neil pulled off again.  

“Sorry,” he said again.  “Jaw cramp.”

Andrew grabbed his shoulders and tugged him up into a bruising kiss.  With his free hand, he stripped off the condom; Neil took over from there, and there was something about having his hand on him where his mouth had just been that sent Andrew tumbling over the edge.

They cleaned up quickly and then just stayed tangled together across the back seat in their wet clothes that had no hope of drying.  Sometimes Neil’s fingers would find Andrew’s; sometimes Andrew’s lips would press against Neil’s hair. Andrew didn’t even know what time it was, with the storm turning the sky to a brackish gray.  Probably time to leave, or past time. But he couldn’t bring himself to move, not yet. So they lay there in the shadow of the skeleton of his childhood, and listened to the rain pour down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the response to the last chapter! I'm trying my level best to reply to comments because they mean the world to me, when my anxiety lets me. <3 Hope this made up for the mild trauma of the last one a bit!


	5. Thanksgiving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night after Thanksgiving, Andrew can't sleep. He seeks a breather in his car, and gets a little more than he bargained for when Neil decides to tag along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little less romantic than the last, but it does have some important reveals from Neil. CW for spiders, in case that's a thing for anyone (as it may, in face, be for Andrew). As always, thank Nicole @tntwme for the beta, and Cory @foxsoulcourt for keeping me on track!

There was a spider on Andrew’s ceiling.

The house was a sleepy sort of silent, the aromas of turkey and stuffing and pie still lingering in the air.  He wanted to sleep, but his eyes wouldn’t stay closed. Every time he blinked, he lost the spider in the shadows, and it took him a moment each time to find it again.  

His covers were too heavy.  He kicked them off, but that left him vulnerable to the spider if it rappelled down, and he tucked his legs back in again.  If only Neil was here. Not that Neil could reach the spider any better than he could, but Neil was better than no Neil. He wondered what they would get up to, the two of them, alone in the dark and quiet.  It wouldn’t even matter, not really; he just wanted Neil’s vital warmth up against him.

Rubbing his hand over his face, he sat up and snagged his phone off the nightstand.   _ You up? _

Three dots appeared immediately.   _ Too full to sleep _

Andrew decided not to mention the spider, who had disappeared into the shadows again.  He slapped at an imaginary bug on the back of his neck and got out of bed.  _ Going for a drive wanna come? _

_ Stuart will kill me _

Andrew made a face at his phone.   _ Ok _

He crept down the stairs and scribbled a note for Bee.  She’d still probably be mad, but at least she’d know where he was.  It wasn’t even that late, just past eleven; he’d been out much later before.  Pulling a jacket on, he shoved his bare feet into his shoes and slipped through the door, locking it behind him.

The air was cool enough when it hit the exposed skin on his chest that he shivered.  Probably he should’ve gotten dressed, instead of going out in just his stupid joke pajama bottoms with turkeys on them, but it was too late now.  

He passed the onramp for I-185 and got onto 20 instead.  It was completely vacant, dark but for the streetlamps throwing semicircles of light across the road, and he crept up past the speed limit and higher, higher, coasting down the hills where the wind in his hair through the open window felt like flying.  He was almost to I-85 when his phone buzzed in its holder.  _ Come get me. _

Neil was waiting for him on the step; he didn’t pull into the driveway, not wanting the lights to shine in through the darkened windows.  When Neil slid into the passenger seat, hair mussed up and smile lighting his whole face, something settled deep within him. “Where are we going?”

Andrew shrugged and put the car back in drive.  He didn’t care where they were heading, just that there was crisp fall air blowing in his face and Neil was looking at him like  _ that _ from the passenger seat.  Turning left, he headed towards the edge of town, where a narrow road wound along the demarcation between city and farmland.  There weren’t stoplights up there, and he had long wondered how fast he could push the car along its twists and turns.

Neil was uncommonly quiet.  Andrew wondered if this was normal late-night Neil, still and soft around the edges, or if there was something bothering him.  The radio was tuned to whatever station Aaron had been listening to when he had driven Katelyn home after pie earlier, and the gentle lyrics filled the car over the hum of the engine.   _ All the things left to come are the things that have passed, like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass. _

He knew the song, knew the chorus that was coming next.  Before it could get there, his hand was reaching up to change the station.  Nineties music blared over the radio; his hand was almost shaking as he brought it back to the steering wheel, and he wanted to laugh at himself.  Evidently tonight was the night to be a coward. Though he thought he’d rather face the spider than those fucking lyrics, when Neil was sitting there staring at him with the moonlight throwing his face into relief.

The road looped most of the way around their small city, eventually joining up with the highway that cut through the center.  He turned north and hit the gas. The fallow fields off to the left gleamed ghostly in the headlights. Once, the field looked back at him for a second, before movement turned the staring eyes into a deer.  It was hunting season, and Andrew wondered if the deer would make it much past dawn. A strange sentimental part of himself sent up a wish that it would.  

Lyrics from his childhood washed over him.  He remembered this song; remembered this whole album from when one of his foster-sisters used to blast it when her parents were out of the house.   _ My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating.  Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me. Till then I walk alone. _   Once he had stolen into her room while she was out and put the CD on, playing the song over and over until Aaron came in and dragged him out, terrified that they would get found.  It didn’t stop Andrew from doing it again, and again, until finally they had moved on to yet another home.  

“Do you want to have sex?” Neil asked, shattering the little trance Andrew had gone into.  Andrew’s hands gave an involuntary jerk and he skittered onto the shoulder, spraying gravel before making it back onto the road.

“Right now?”  And fuck him if his voice didn’t crack like he was thirteen years old.  Neil’s mouth twitched up, at the question or the way it was delivered Andrew couldn’t tell.  

“That wasn’t what I meant, but…”  He trailed off suggestively, and Andrew risked a glance at him.  

“But what, Josten?  You can’t start something like that and not finish it.”

Neil grinned, a source of light all on its own.  “I don’t know, I was thinking about it earlier.”

Andrew swallowed; it was harder than it should have been, as if all his instinctive functions had fled the scene.  “Context would be appreciated.”

“It’s just, we were at dinner with Uncle Stuart’s stupid boss, and it was boring as hell.  I wish he’d taken Dr. Dobson up on her offer, I would’ve rather spent Thanksgiving with you.”  

“Technically, you are spending part of Thanksgiving with me.”

“It’s after midnight, so not really.  But anyway, it kept me from bringing up politics and getting kicked out of the house just for some entertainment.”

Andrew wanted to ask him what, precisely, he had been thinking about that had steered him in that direction.  If it had been the handjobs they’d given each other in the changing room behind the auditorium the other day after lunch.  Or maybe the blowjobs they’d managed to properly figure out a couple of weekends ago in Andrew’s bedroom, muffling their sounds in his pillows while Aaron blasted music in his room across the hall.  But that wasn’t the memory that made him squirm, that kept him lying awake nights wondering what it would be like to be that close to Neil. No; the memory he replayed over and over was lying intertwined in the backseat of this car in a vacant parking lot a few weeks ago, listening to the rain pour down.

He cleared his throat.  “So what conclusion did you reach?”

There was a long pause, and he took his eyes off the road again to see Neil looking out the window.  “I think I want to try it.” His fingers drummed on the door handle, and he gave his head a tiny shake.  “It’s weird, though. Isn’t it? Like, I get the mechanics of it, I just…”

Andrew waited, the words of a song written ten years before he was born filling the car.   “You just what?”

“I don’t know.  I mean, do you want to?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Andrew opened his mouth, but there was no easy reply waiting.  It wasn’t so much about getting off, not when hands and mouths served perfectly well for that purpose.  He thought about porn, something he watched with a strange sort of detachment that mirrored the actors’.  That wasn’t what he wanted, not really. Not with Neil. Maybe with the others, maybe if he hadn’t gotten bored and they hadn’t found someone else, but he would be lying to himself if he said this wasn’t different.

Another image came to mind.  That German show, the easy closeness of the actors, the awe and the laughter and the simple joy.   _ ‘I’m nervous.’  ‘So am I.’ _   He had never let himself be...vulnerable, not like that, not until Neil.  But verbalizing this—it was an impossibility. His tongue was too thick in his mouth for words, so he reached out and fumbled around for Neil’s hand, raising it to his lips when he found it.  

Somehow the feel of Neil’s skin, the smell of him, the taste in the darkness, gave him the strength to say, “Because it’s you.”

There was another stretch of quiet between them.  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Neil said finally. He laughed, a soft, almost sad sound.  “I really did think I was ace, you know. Remember when you asked me?” Andrew nodded; of course he did.  “I just wanted to be your friend. And then we were friends, and I just wanted to kiss you. And then you kissed me...and I didn’t think I was ace anymore.”

He really should’ve brought some water or something along, if only to give him something to do other than keep his foot on the gas and the car on the road.  “Your uncle’s websites finally getting to you?”

Neil laughed again, for real this time.  “Maybe. Why does everything have to be a spectrum?  Why can’t anything just be, I don’t know. Straightforward.”

“Straightforward is boring,” Andrew said.  “Didn’t you learn that in English class?”

“You know I hate English.  All those fucking tragedies, just because everyone is so stupid.”  

“Hey, you’re the one who’s in the gray zone.”

Neil huffed and looked out the window again.  “Maybe that’s why I hate it.” He shook his head.  “This is why I like math. It’s mostly clear. I mean, even when it’s obtuse, there’s still like, a process.”

The road was curving to the east; they had a mile, maybe two, before it turned back south and joined up with the highway.  The clock on the dash read 12:21. It was time to start heading back, but Andrew didn’t want to. Not when the air in the car was charged like a storm.  “So where do you fall? On the spectrum?”

Those damn eyes turned back to him.  “I don’t know. I think—I think I like demi.  I think that feels right.”

Andrew made a mental note to google that when he got home.  There was a sign for 85, and he eased off the gas almost against his will.  He wondered what Bee would say if they stayed out all night, driving until he physically couldn’t anymore.  Nothing good, probably. He turned towards the city.

Just before the onramp he saw it: an empty parking lot, only a couple of lights still fighting against the dark, the rundown warehouse looming at the back.  He slammed on the brakes and hit the indicator.

Tucking the car into a shadow, he shut off the engine and turned to Neil, only to find him already reaching for him.  His goddamn seatbelt almost strangled him when he tried to lean in, and it took three tries to release it. But then it was easy to climb across the console into Neil’s lap, easy to find that hungry mouth.  He could feel Neil through his stupid thin pajama pants, responding as easily as he was. His hands found skin under Neil’s sweatshirt, and Neil’s slipped into his open jacket, tracing up his back.  

Reaching down, he released the seat back and sent them both tumbling backwards.  Neil gave a breathless laugh beneath him. “Yes or no?”

Andrew pressed a quick, ticking kiss below Neil’s ear.  “I don’t have condoms. Or lube.”

Neil pressed his hand flat against Andrew’s side.  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Then yes.”

And fuck, Neil’s hands had gotten good.  Every time it took Andrew by surprise. When he got a yes of his own, Andrew shifted his weight onto one arm and slipped his hand into Neil’s sweatpants.  It was hard to concentrate, with Neil giving as good as he got, with them swallowing each other’s panting breaths, their lips and teeth clashing as things got sloppier and sloppier— 

A knock on the driver’s side window had them both cringing apart.  Andrew squinted into the sudden light shining into the car; he couldn’t see the person very well, but he could make out a red gleam behind them.  A cop. Of fucking course.

The cop knocked again.  Andrew groaned a little as he took his hand out of Neil’s pants, giving a little tug as he went and enjoying the hiss he got in response.  Climbing back into the driver’s seat, he turned the key and rolled down the window. “What?”

The guy looked between them, a little flicker of surprise in his eyes.  “License and registration, please.”

Andrew dug around in his jacket pocket for a second, grateful he had left his wallet in there.  He handed over his license while Neil rooted around in the glove box for the registration. Andrew got a little bit of satisfaction knowing that there was probably a little bit of pre-come on it when he handed it over.  The cop looked like he might be wondering the same thing, taking the paper by the bare edges. “Your parents know you’re out?”

“Yeah,” Andrew said, hearing Neil echo behind him.

“Well, you can’t park here, boys.  You’re gonna have to head on home.”

Andrew was pretty sure they could both hear his teeth grind as he swallowed down every stupid thing he wanted to say.  The cop gingerly returned his stuff, then waited, arms crossed, while they buckled their seatbelts and turned the car on.  Before he rolled up his window, the cop rested a hand on it, looking like he had something to say. Andrew braced for it, but after a long moment, the cop gave his head a tiny shake and just said, “Drive safe, boys.”

Neil gave a tiny sigh as Andrew pulled onto the highway, barely audible over the low strains of Pearl Jam that were leaking through the speakers.  Andrew risked a glance at him, and the ache in his groin intensified when he saw the wry smile on that too-pretty mouth, the look in those eyes. “At this rate, we’re going to have graduated college before we get a chance to…”

“To what?” Andrew asked, keeping his hands firmly on the steering wheel.  He was determined not to drive off the road again, no matter what came out of that mouth.

“To...do stuff.”

“Stuff?  What are you, twelve?”  He reached over to pinch Neil’s side, but was fended off by a laughing Neil, who seized his hand and laced their fingers and held on tight.  

“What do you want me to say?  Before we get a chance to fuck?  It sounds so, I don’t know. Awful.”

It didn’t really, not to Andrew; it sounded kind of hot.  He could picture it, Neil murmuring it, face flushed, hair plastered to his neck, the taste of sweat on his skin…

He shifted in his seat, wondering if Neil could see his goddamn turkey pajama pants tenting again.  Was Neil similarly affected? He couldn’t tell, not in the dark with just the occasional streetlight flashing through the window.  His hand was still linked with Neil’s, resting on his thigh, just a couple of inches away from being able to tell. Road head was a thing, he knew; he’d read about it, seen it in a couple of porn videos, but did anybody do road handjobs?  Maybe when they got back to Neil’s house, in the dark and quiet of the driveway.    


But a light was on in the living room, and Neil’s fingers squeezed his tightly when he pulled into the driveway.  “I texted him,” Neil said, swallowing. “But he always has his phone on Do-Not-Disturb at night. I hope—I’m sorry, if he called your mom or something.”

Andrew squeezed back, and pulled Neil over for a kiss.  It was supposed to be quick, but he didn’t think it ended up that way.  When they broke apart, he rested his forehead against Neil’s for a quick second.  “Text me.”

“I will.”

The darkness swallowed Neil up briefly before spitting him back out on his front step.  Andrew watched him hesitate there before opening the door, then watched his silhouette cross the lighted window.  He wanted to go in, to make sure everything was okay, but he needed to get home and see what was waiting for him. 

The house was dark and silent, and he sent up a muttered thank you as he slipped up the stairs to his room.  He flicked on the light, scanning for the spider, and finally located it clinging to the ceiling above his desk.  Standing on his desk, he might just be able to reach it, but for some reason he couldn’t explain, he didn’t want to kill it.  “If you stay there I won’t bother you.”

It might have looked at him, might not have; he couldn’t tell, even with his glasses.  Dumping his jacket on his chair, he shut off the light and crawled under his covers with his phone.   _ You ok _

_ Yeah _ came Neil’s response a minute later.   _ He just wanted to make sure we were safe. I got the condom lecture though _

Andrew snorted.   _ He’s a bit late on that _

_ I did not tell him that _

_ How about you you okay? _

 

_ Bee’s still asleep. _   He hesitated a moment, his thumbs tapping his phone case, then:  _ Did you mean it earlier _

 

_ Yes _

_ But I don’t know what to do _

 

_ Same _

_ We’ll figure it out _

 

_ Yeah.  Night. _

 

_ Night. _   Andrew set down his phone, exhaustion pulling at him.  He’d reached that point where everything felt slightly unreal, where it felt like he wasn’t really still in his body.  A weird part of him liked this feeling. He understood why some found it a religious experience. It did feel like there were other planes of existence here, that he was alone in this secondary world, his bed and his phone the only tethers to the more visceral earth.  Everything was slow and still, even the memories of the past two hours blurry, as if watched through wavy glass.

_ I think I like demi. _   Neil’s quiet voice surfaced, prodding gently at the strange taffy bubble he was in.  Andrew lay for a minute, debating, before he reached one disembodied hand out for his phone.  

_ A  _ **_demisexual person_ ** _ is someone who does not experience sexual attraction to another person unless or until they have formed an emotional connection with that person. It's more commonly seen in, but by no means confined, to romantic relationships. _

_ Emotional connection. _   Andrew stared at the phrase, but it couldn’t quite sink into his marshmallow brain.  Something bloomed, deep in his chest. He wanted to solve it, like one of Neil’s equations, but before he could he was dreaming of still lake waters and a boat that did not rock as he stepped inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the response to this fic! I hope this chapter was still satisfying even if it wasn't so much for the boys. <3 HMU at [fuzzballsheltiepants](https://fuzzballsheltiepants.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr if you want!


	6. Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas, and Neil invites Andrew over for...dessert. Introspection follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay for this last chapter! It's a longer one, so hopefully makes up for the delay. I've really loved writing this fic, with this version of Andrew and Neil exploring sex together. I hope you all enjoy this last section, the +1 with no interruptions! Warning for Andrew reflecting on life as a neglected foster child (he was NOT abused in this AU), and Neil having a complicated relationship with Christmas.
> 
> A special thank you to Nicole @tntwme for the beta and talking me through when I get stuck, and Cory @foxsoulcourt for believing in this fic and in me even when I was having a rough time.

It was barely past 5 p.m. and the backyard was already cloaked in darkness.  Andrew stared out the window as he rinsed the last of the dishes before slotting it into its home in the dishwasher.  Bee was humming behind him, waiting for the kettle to boil; he heard it click, then water pour into the silly flower mug he had given her.  It was a tradition, those mugs, and the mug rack was slowly filling with them. Five Christmases, five stupid flower mugs. One for every weeknight.

The aroma of apple and cinnamon slowly filled the kitchen, warring with the last of the Christmas carols humming over the stereo for the leftover shreds of his attention.  _I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know._   He wanted to laugh at the stupidity of it as he dried his hands on the towel.  Had anyone ever actually had a white Christmas south of Minnesota? Or was that just some stupid myth they fed people, trying to push nostalgia for something that had never happened?

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out.  Kevin, for some reason: _Merry Christmas_   Andrew stared at it for a long moment, debating whether to reply with _wtf_ or not reply at all.  Though he had to admit Kevin had been...tolerable lately.  Since prom. Since Neil.

Neil’s text thread was just below, and Andrew cast a furtive glance Bee’s way.  He still felt laughter wanting to bubble up at the message from that morning. _Thanks for the book! I’m kind of relieved it wasn’t a dildo._   The text had popped up in the middle of Bee opening her scarf from Aaron, and Andrew had nearly choked on his tongue.  Otherwise the day had been quiet and busy, just like every Christmas; a flurry of wrapping paper and testing out gifts and cooking.  It had been the three of them until about half an hour ago, when Aaron’s girlfriend had appeared and draped herself all over him in the family room.  Andrew had been more than happy to come in and do dishes just to get away from the sight—and sound—of the two of them sucking face. He kind of wished Bee had maintained her rule of “just them” for Christmas.

His phone rang in his hand, and he was so startled he dropped it onto the counter before muttering a curse and grabbing it again.  “Since when do you call me?”

“Merry Christmas to you too,” Neil said.  “I figured calling seemed more holiday-appropriate.”

Andrew snorted.  “Good to know you’re observing the traditional niceties.”

“What the fuck, have you been reading Dickens or something?”  There was something different about him, Andrew realized; the humor felt like it was being put on, like a mask.  

“What’s going on?” he asked, trying for casual.

“Nothing,” Neil said.  “I’m fine.” Andrew stayed silent, waiting for the sigh he knew was coming.  When it came, it was so small—just the tiniest little hitch through the phone.  “Uncle Stuart got called into work.” 

“You’re alone on Christmas?”  He felt Bee’s eyes snap up, and he half-turned away.

“Yeah, but it’s no big deal.”

“Do you want to come over?”

There was a split-second pause, then, “No, I don’t want to bother you guys.  Besides, I told Uncle Stuart I’d stay home. He doesn’t want me driving, he’s worried about drunk drivers.”

“I’ll come over,” Andrew said, glancing over his shoulder to see Bee’s encouraging nod.  

“No, it’s okay Andrew, really.  I’m fine.”

“You’re full of shit.  I’m coming over.”

The silence through the phone was long enough Andrew took his phone away from his ear to check to make sure it hadn’t been disconnected.  Eventually Neil’s voice came through, quiet and relieved. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks.” And then a smile came through, loud and true and playful.  “Maybe we can have...dessert.”

Andrew could feel heat creeping up his neck, and he hoped Bee wouldn’t notice.  He was pretty sure he knew what Neil meant; they had talked about it, more than once since that Thanksgiving drive.  But he couldn’t ignore the possibility of wishful thinking on his part. He eyed the half-eaten pie on the counter. “I’ll be there in a few.”

Shoving his phone in his pocket, he studied Bee for a moment.  There was an unfamiliar expression in her warm brown eyes, something that was almost sad but not quite.  “This really okay? You usually want us home on Christmas.”

She laughed, and the expression was swallowed up by warmth.  “I think you’ve fulfilled your familial duties for the day,” she said, getting to her feet.  

He wanted to ask her what was with the look, but the moment was passed.  “I don’t know when I’ll be home.”

“You’re eighteen, Andrew.  As long as Stuart doesn’t object, I’m not going to either.  But I would appreciate a text if you plan to stay the night.”

His whole face was burning at that, in spite of—or maybe because of—the matter-of-fact way she said it.  He thought maybe he nodded as he turned to go upstairs, but maybe not. Bee had gotten him some new clothes, and he sorted through until he found the shirt he wanted, a soft black henley that somehow fit perfectly.  His jacket was draped over his chair, and he stuffed the inside pockets with the contents of his nightstand drawer. Bee might have had an idea about his plans, but he didn’t need to make it obvious.  

Halfway down the stairs, he turned back around to brush his teeth.  Something was fluttering in his stomach, and he didn’t think he could blame the roast beef.  When he got back downstairs, Bee handed him a stack of containers. “Cookies, cake, and pie,” she said, pointing at each in turn.  “I don’t think Stuart bakes.” A travesty, in the Dobson household.

Andrew snorted at the idea of Stuart in his showroom kitchen, the one he had never seen either of them using aside from the fridge and the microwave.  Aaron un-suction-cupped himself from the cheerleader long enough to ask, “Where the fuck are you going?”

“Where do you think?” Andrew asked, setting the boxes down to tie his boots. 

“Seriously?  On Christmas?”

“I’m here,” Katelyn chided him gently.  “It’s not that weird.”

“Yeah, _Aaron,_ ” Andrew said, straightening up, “listen to your girlfriend.”

Aaron looked like he wanted to argue further, but he didn’t want to lose face with the cheerleader.  “Fine. Tell your boyfriend Merry Christmas.” 

Andrew gave a two-fingered salute and snagged his keys.  As he was almost through the door, Aaron called, “And don’t forget the lube!”  Katelyn shushing him saved him a punch to the face; Andrew left him to her and settled into his car.  It was cold enough he could see his breath misting in front of him, and for a good thirty seconds he craved a cigarette.  Fucking stupid nicotine. He hadn’t smoked in months and his stupid brain still wanted its stupid happy chemical.

The drive slipped by without noticing, his body operating on muscle memory while his brain zipped through a thousand different scenarios.  He was almost surprised when he found himself in Neil’s driveway, staring up at the house. Part of him wanted to turn around, and he didn’t totally know why.  Wasn’t this something that had crept into his dreams? Neil, under him, lips parted on a breath that way he knew they did. But he knew too well how the subconscious lied.

Only it didn’t, really, not with Neil.  Not in ways that mattered. He opened his car door.

“I didn’t mean it literally,” Neil said, staring at the stack of containers in Andrew’s hand as he kicked off his shoes.

"I know.”  He pushed past him and headed through the living room, ignoring the tree that towered in the corner blinking red and blue and green.  “Bee sent it along.”

“Okay,” Neil shrugged.  “Uh, I guess you can put it on the counter?  Or does it need to go in the fridge?”

Andrew dropped the Tupperware on the granite with a thud.  “Your uncle went to work on Christmas?”

Neil made a face, a little wrinkle of his nose that would have been cute if it weren’t for the flash of pain behind it.  “It’s fine. We don’t really do Christmas much anyway.”

Andrew looked over his shoulder at the ten-foot glowing monstrosity.  “Clearly.”

“No, really.  It’s like...going through the motions.  People notice if you don’t but really neither of us likes it much.”

There was more to this; Andrew could feel it under the surface, like water just about to boil, but he pushed it aside for now.  “What am I doing here then, if you’re not using me for my Christmas cookies?”

He could no more have resisted the resulting smile than the tides could resist the moon.  Without thinking, he was in Neil’s space, his hands on his waist, feeling more than hearing the words Neil murmured into his neck.  “I mean, we can do whatever you want.” Andrew leaned back, eyebrow raised, and Neil flushed the rosy color of a sunset on snow. “I, um.  I cleaned up? But we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

There was a brief pause while Andrew’s brain rebooted.  Neil took advantage of his temporary lingual paralysis to link their fingers before turning to the stairs. 

Stepping into Neil’s room felt heavy, somehow; he didn’t know how else to describe it.  Not that he hadn’t been here before, but Neil usually preferred to come to his house, or go for a drive.  Maybe it was just how plain it was, as if after all these years Neil still hadn’t claimed the space. Maybe it was knowing what he was here for.

Before he could get too far into his head, Neil was in front of him, smiling that stupid soft smile.  “Hey.”

“Hey.”  Neil’s hair was damp, the ends curling against his temples.  Andrew reached up and touched it, letting his fingers brush lightly against his scalp.  Neil leaned into him like a cat, closing his eyes and letting out a slow breath. That simple action had Andrew’s shoulders relaxing, and he pulled Neil’s head down to rest against his own.  

They stood like that for a moment, and all Andrew could think was _this._   He still didn’t know how that had happened, how he had let it happen; how it had gone from the simple familiar wanting to something that felt like that first gasp of air after being underwater for too long.  Months and months, and he still didn’t know. Neil opened his eyes, the clear blue blurry this close up but the look unmistakable even so. Andrew kissed him, swallowing those impossible words before they could escape into the air, hoping Neil heard his unspoken answer.  

Somehow they ended up on the bed, tangled up in sheets and clothes and hands.  This was easy, familiar, and Andrew let himself sink into the comforting warmth of it.  Neil’s fingers curved into the hem of his shirt, crumpling the fabric and grazing his skin, sending an involuntary shiver up his spine.  “Can I?” 

Andrew started to reach up automatically to yank off his shirt, but something in Neil’s face stopped him.  At his nod, Neil slid slender hands up his body, peeling off the fabric with a reverence Andrew could never earn.  Andrew returned the favor, and he understood it then, the sacrament of it. He wanted to laugh at his own sentimentality, but he couldn’t find the breath.

Kissing was different skin to skin.  Andrew traced patterns up Neil’s back with his fingers and down his neck with his teeth.  Neil rewarded him with little twitches and gasps, and punished him with an onslaught of his own.  If they weren’t careful Andrew was going to come before they ever got their jeans off, he realized as Neil mouthed down his throat.

“Did you really?” he bit out, and Neil pulled away to look at him.  “Get ready?”

Neil ducked his head to nip at Andrew’s jaw.  “Yeah,” he murmured, keeping his face tucked in.

“And you’re...okay.”

Neil hummed, the vibration joining every other sensation in shooting straight to Andrew’s groin.  “Yeah, it’s a bit awkward but it’s not that bad. I mean, don’t think we have to, just because I did it, you know?”

Andrew toyed absently with Neil’s hair while he tried to decipher the undercurrent beneath Neil’s words.  “Do you want to?” 

“I—yes, I do, if you do.  But—”

Andrew kissed him to shut him up.  He kissed him to tell him yes, kissed him with all the words he couldn’t say.  They managed to finish stripping each other in an awkward flurry of limbs and denim, and then Neil was there, laid out bare and rosy and hard, and suddenly everything slowed down.  Stopped. A snapshot, there in the warm soft light; something that could never happen again, not like this, not for the first time.   

He thought maybe Neil saw it too, when his eyes roamed down the full length of Andrew’s body, when he pressed lingering, open-mouthed kisses on Andrew’s lips, on his jaw, traced along his collarbone.  Andrew let his world narrow down to these sensations: warm breath across his skin; the clean scent of soap; the faint sharp taste of mint contrasted with salt; the sound of gasps in both their voices; the way Neil shivered under Andrew’s palm as it stroked over his hip.  Andrew reached for the blanket.

“I’m not cold,” Neil said, shivering again as Andrew’s fingers teased along the back of his neck.  “I’m not.” 

Andrew scoffed but settled for wrapping himself around Neil instead.  This had some added benefits; he hadn’t quite appreciated before exactly how perfect Neil’s right thigh was, until it was between his own; hadn’t quite understood the full impact of skin and muscle and bone.  His hand found its way to Neil’s cock, and he watched the flush rise along Neil’s neck as he stroked it lightly.

Two fingers touched his wrist, and he froze.  “You keep doing this, and I’m going to be in trouble,” Neil said, one corner of his mouth quirking up.  “Did you bring stuff? I didn’t know what to buy, there’s way more choices than I thought.”

Andrew twisted away to dig through his jacket where he had tossed it in the vicinity of the bed.  He swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat as his fingers scrabbled against the bottle of lube.  Somehow he managed to catch hold of it and finagle it out of the pocket, grabbing a condom too before dropping his jacket back to the floor.

Neil swiped the bottle out of his hand and studied it.  “Is this the best kind?”

“Do you really want to have an in-depth educational seminar about lube right now?”

Neil looked from the bottle to his face, then down his body, fixing on his cock.  “Yeah, no, not right now. Maybe later though.”

Andrew huffed a laugh and shoved at Neil’s shoulder.  He went down easily, spreading his knees, making that space for Andrew as if it were nothing.  As if it were meant for him. He didn’t let himself think about that as he slicked up his finger.  No; the set of Neil’s teeth in his lip, the tiny catch in his breath, the _something_ foreign and familiar in his eyes; that was all Andrew could see, all he could hear.

He used what might have been too much lube sliding his finger in, then what was almost certainly too much more adding the second.  Neil made a face as he looked down at what he couldn’t see. “I think I’m probably ready there,” he said dryly, as if either of them knew what qualified as “ready.”  “I don’t think you’re supposed to use the whole bottle.”

The opportunity was irresistible; Andrew crooked his finger, rubbing gently along Neil’s prostate in the way he’d learned drove him insane.  True to form, Neil dropped his head back onto the pillow with a hiss. “Cheating.” It was probably supposed to sound indignant, but it came out needy and breathless, and Andrew laughed under his breath as he did it again.

Neil may have had a point when lube kind of went everywhere when Andrew withdrew his fingers.  Still. Better too much than not enough. Neil’s bath towel was draped over one of the bedposts, and Andrew snagged it to wipe his hand.  After a moment’s consideration, he shoved it under Neil’s ass and thighs in a belated attempt to salvage the sheets.  

“I probably should’ve thought of that,” Neil said as he lifted his hips out of the way, giving Andrew an eyeful.  The tender skin high up on his thigh begged for a kiss. Andrew obliged, sucking a bruise into it and earning fingers in his hair.  The result was asymmetrical, and he spent a minute correcting that before sitting back on his heels.

“Andrew.”  He had never heard his name said quite like that, throaty and wanting and—and beautiful.  Neil held out the condom.

“Are you sure?” he asked, needing to hear it one more time.

“Yes.”  Neil sat up and kissed him as he tore open the packet, then leaned back to watch him roll it on.  He added more lube, and Neil had the audacity to laugh.

“This is for your benefit,” Andrew said, shaking his head as he stole a kiss.

“I’m just hearing a lot of talk.”  Neil hooked his feet behind Andrew’s back and they both went still.

“How—”  Andrew’s voice came out hoarse, and he cleared his throat.  “It’s supposed to be easier from behind. For you. Remember that thing we read?”

“I know.”  Neil held his gaze, his eyes clear and steady.  “But I think I need to see your face, you know?”

He did.  Fuck him, he did.  He reached up and cupped Neil’s jaw in his hand, feeling the soft-rough stubble under his palm, the delicate bones of his cheek under his fingertips.  Neil pushed up on his elbows to meet his mouth, the heat of the kiss burning away the misty uncertainty as surely as the summer sun.

It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to let his fingers find their way back to Neil’s entrance, to smile into the resulting gasp as he teased.  It was easy, too, to guide his cock to where his fingers were. He pulled back to study Neil’s face. “Still yes?”

“Still yes.”  Neil dropped back against his pillow, canting his hips up a little and hitching his feet around Andrew’s back again.  There was a part of Andrew’s brain that wanted to analyze this, to marvel at the improbability of it, to mire him down in thoughts and questions and fears and—and Neil just looked at him, with something shining in his eyes.  Something like trust, only more; something like desire, only more; and Andrew let himself go.

Neil sucked in a breath as Andrew pressed into him, and Andrew froze, trying not to lose himself in the heat that enveloped him.  “Just give me a second,” Neil said, breathless, before Andrew could get his wits back and withdraw. It was a strange form of torture, this; his instincts screaming at him to move while he forced himself to be still.  After a moment Neil’s breath came easier, and Andrew lowered his lips to the demarcation of scarring across his chest. Three slow, close kisses later and Neil buried one hand in his hair.

“It’s okay,” Neil said, moving his hips just a little and earning a hiss of his own from Andrew.  “It’s okay.” The hand that wasn’t in Andrew’s hair slid down his back, pressing into the small of it.  Andrew rolled his hips a fraction experimentally, ignoring the little thrum of pleasure that ran over him in favor of studying Neil’s face.  There was no pain or tightness in his eyes. He looked almost like he did when working a physics problem, and it was suddenly hard not to laugh.  

He distracted himself from the impulse by rolling his hips again, and oh.  Again. Again. A little shift, and something changed in the angle that had Neil gasping out, “Fu—yeah.  That’s…” Neil trailed off, his hand fumbling between them until it found his cock, and Andrew pulled back a little and then tried again.  He seemed to have found the right spot, judging by the way Neil’s teeth set in his lip, the way his hand stuttered on his cock.  

Suddenly Andrew understood why wars had been fought over this.  It wasn’t just _this;_ it wasn’t just the pleasure, though that was building like a tidal wave.  It was the closeness; it was not being able to tell where he ended and Neil began.  It was the laughter and the kisses and bared scars and bared bodies, the bared souls.  When it came down to it, this moment was just one small part of what was worth burning the world for.  

Neil’s breaths were faster, harsher; Andrew’s mimicked them.  Just when he thought he’d figured out a rhythm it became harder to maintain.  Harder to stay in his body altogether, really. He vaguely thought he’d be willing to burn some of Bee’s Christmas cookies for Apollo if only he would not come first when Neil’s hand clenched his side and Neil choked out his name, his whole body going taut.  Andrew followed Neil over the edge, uncertain what words gasped through his teeth as the wave of release crashed over him.

Awareness trickled back to him like sand.  Neil’s hand, absently rubbing his side. Neil’s lips, pressed to his temple, his cheek, his jaw.  Neil’s body, still wrapped around him, faintly trembling. Andrew pulled out carefully and he stretched out next to Neil, examining him, trying to gauge how he was feeling without needing to search for his voice.  Neil turned his face towards him without opening his eyes, and Andrew gave in to the wordless request. The kiss was softer than it had any right to be, and unforgivably he felt his eyes begin to burn.

He sat up to strip off the condom, and Neil curled in around him, mumbling something into his side.  Andrew eased himself back down until he was nose to nose with Neil, so close he could count the eyelashes fanning his cheek and hear the smile twisting his lips.  “What did you say?” he whispered, the words still somehow too loud in the quiet room.

Neil hummed and snaked an arm around Andrew, pulling him closer.  “Don’t go.”

“I won’t,” Andrew promised, threading his fingers into Neil’s hair.  “But what did you say?”

“That’s what I said.  I said, ‘Don’t go.’” A long leg joined the arm’s quest to keep Andrew as wrapped up as possible, and Andrew’s laugh filled the narrow space between them.  They lay there for a minute or an hour, breathing in each other’s air. Neil seemed ready to drift off to sleep, and Andrew kissed the tip of his nose.  

“We should clean up.”

Neil’s arm and leg tightened around him.  “Don’t wanna get up.”

Andrew hesitated a moment, not sure if he wanted to know then deciding he needed to.  “Are you sore?”

Blue eyes snapped open at that, more alert than they should have been.  “Not really. Maybe a little? Kind of like...after a long run, I guess.”  He lifted his hand to Andrew’s face, drawing him in for a slow, soft kiss. “You don’t need to worry.”

He nestled into Andrew’s neck like he was going to sleep. Andrew extracted himself and stood. He felt oddly loose, like he’d been on one of those spinning rides at the fair. Neil grumbled and reached blindly for him until Andrew huffed and scooped him up. The resulting yelp forced him to hide his grin in Neil’s shoulder as he set him carefully on his feet. 

They stood like that for a long moment, arms loosely around each other, naked and strangely unembarrassed.  Maybe after what they had just shared, there was no room left for awkwardness. Andrew breathed Neil in, the scents of sweat and sex and the faint coconut of shampoo mingling together.  Bee had once told him that for most people smell was the sense most strongly associated with memory, but for him, with his supposedly perfect memory, smells seemed to fade over time like a bruise.  

He wouldn’t forget this.  He wouldn’t let himself.

Everything seemed to happen in slow-motion; time took small leaps.  Chasing water down Neil’s neck with his mouth in the shower somehow turned into sitting at the dining table with apple pie.  Neil ate his with cheese, which should have been illegal but apparently was not. Then Stuart Hatford was there, his sharp eyes noting their damp hair but his mouth saying nothing.  A blink, and they were back in Neil’s room, Andrew following him between clean sheets, turning his phone off on Bee’s response to his text. _See you tomorrow.  Be safe._   

Safe.  It was a strange concept.  So many different kinds of safety, some of them common sense, some of them really cowardice, and some of them—some of them so unexpected.  Some of them felt like diving off a cliff, when really they were wading into a waist-high pool.

Neil was laying there facing him, one hand tucked under his cheek, the other resting on Andrew’s waist.  His own brand of dangerous safety. It still seemed unreal sometimes, that his stupid impossible crush inexplicably wanted him back.  When did a crush become something else? Was it over mocking each other in chemistry, or going to prom just to shut people up? Was it that first parking lot kiss, with no one to see and nothing to prove?  Or did the crush erode away over the months since, exposing something deeper and more solid, loose soil giving way to rock?

Andrew wanted to laugh at himself again.  He wondered when he had got so maudlin, if it was the holiday or if this was the expected after-effect of sex, or if it was just because Neil was looking at him like that in the moonlit darkness.  

“I’m sorry I didn’t give you anything for Christmas,” Neil murmured, interrupting his marshmallow thoughts.  

“Yes you did,” Andrew said, tugging him closer, until they were touching at their knees, their feet, their chests.  Points of warmth that felt like spotlights in the darkness.  

He could hear Neil’s grin more than see it.  “I actually did. I mean, more than just that,” Neil said, pushing his hips against Andrew’s for a second.  “I just, I don’t know. It’s in my desk. I didn’t wrap it.”

Andrew glanced in the direction of the desk but didn’t move.  “Why do you hate Christmas?”  

It felt like a door closed between them, though Neil didn’t move.  Andrew pulled at his waist again, rocking the two of them together until Neil’s muscles started to relax.  “Hey. You don’t need to tell me.”

“No, it’s okay.”  Neil rubbed a hand over his face before threading his fingers with Andrew’s.  “My mom and I, we didn’t really have a lot of money, you know? We were always moving, she couldn’t keep a job for all that long.  And like, I didn’t care. I guess maybe I did when I was really little, I don’t really remember, but mostly it was fine. We’d get Chinese food and I’d be off school and she’d be off work and sometimes we’d just drive around and look at decorations or whatever.”

He went quiet, and Andrew squeezed his fingers.  “But everyone else seemed to care? She’d get shit from her coworkers for not buying me all this stuff we didn’t have money for anyway, and I’d get shit from kids at school.  I used to lie, say I was Jewish, but then it was all, ‘What did you get for Hanukkah then?’

“And then she died, and Stuart took me in.  And I found out that when she was younger, before she had me, she—she’d loved Christmas.”

He didn’t explain further; Andrew didn’t need him to.  Christmas had always been a rough thing in foster care, whatever family they were with at the time always got a bunch of stuff for their real kids and he and Aaron had ended up with socks or hand-me-down toys, the distinction always emphasized for this one day even more than the other three hundred sixty four.  

The first year with Bee she’d sat down with them after Thanksgiving and asked them what they wanted to do for winter holidays.  Choice was a weird concept. That year they had opted out of any gifts, so instead Bee had cooked and they’d played games and watched stupid sappy movies, and the week after Christmas Andrew had taken the bus to the shopping center and found the first of the flower mugs.  It was still the one Bee used the most.

But he wasn’t thinking of that when he leaned in and brushed his lips against Neil’s.  He was thinking about fate; about coincidence; about whether the world really did boil down to chance, to atoms colliding.  About if seeing any more meaning in it was just a result of a mass of nerve cells hallucinating inside a meat sack, or if maybe—maybe there was something more to this.  

Bee would say there was.  Renee would too; she would call it God, but that wasn’t his particular preferred hallucination.  A part of him longed to be cynical about it. It was easier to explain the horrible things people did if you could just blame it on electrical impulses gone haywire; easier to understand the good that way too.  And this draw he felt—just a way to enhance survival of the species. 

Easier to explain, but it felt wrong.  Evidently his stupid synapses did not like that.

“What are you thinking about?” Neil whispered.  Andrew hadn’t realized he’d gone still.  

“Evolution,” he said, and Neil laughed as he kissed him again.  But what was the evolutionary purpose of feeling like this? There were so many more efficient ways of ensuring the survival of the species.  

Neil started to scoot out from under the sheets and Andrew tightened his grip.  “Hang on, I want to get you your present.”

He turned the light on and rummaged around for a second in his drawer before handing Andrew a plain brown paper bag.  Inside, wrapped in bubble wrap, was a tiny, perfect glass carousel lion. Andrew stared at it, marveling at the detail: the waves of the mane, the lashing tail, the carved pole coming out of its back.  Why did evolution ever lead to beauty like this? There was no purpose to it, it was objectively useless, but yet. But yet.

Once he had asked Dr. Rhemann, the only one of his therapists to stick, “What is the point of life?”  He’d asked it to every therapist he’d seen, and most of them had asked him questions about ennui and disillusionment and blah blah blah.  

Dr. Rhemann had just cocked his head to the side and studied him for a moment, then asked, “How the hell should I know?”  He had laughed at Andrew’s expression with a kind of sympathetic bemusement. “Scientifically? There probably is no real point.  There’s no end game to this, to life on Earth or the universe or however you’re looking to define your question, it just kind of happened.  But personally? You know that saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder?” Andrew had nodded. “I think the same thing is true for this.  For some people it’s money, for some people it’s religion, or family, or art, or sex. And it’s a moving target. The point for me now is different than it was ten years ago, which was different than when I was your age.  Otherwise it’d be kind of boring, don’t you think?”

Andrew turned the lion so it caught the light, sending a ghost of a prism against the far wall and feeling an unfamiliar soft smile at the sight.  He rewrapped it and set it on the nightstand, then twisted his fingers in Neil’s sleep shirt and pulled him in. They kissed until Neil was falling asleep in his arms, but Andrew couldn’t quite drift off.  A year from now, he’d be home for the holiday from some unknown university. He had no way of guessing where Neil would be; if they would be whatever they were, or if they would somehow drift apart like leaves on a river.  Maybe their point would change.

But even if it did, he would have this.  He would have the little crystal lion, and he would have that day in the abandoned amusement park, and late night drives, and stolen moments in bathrooms and parking lots.  He would have their little jokes, and the sound of his name on Neil’s lips, and the knowledge that somehow—somehow they found a way to make this work for however long they had.

And for now, that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really can't explain how much all your comments mean to me! I mentioned it on Tumblr but I lost my sweet sweet dog Carlisle (not the sheltie of my username but my gentleman spaniel) 2 weeks ago, and it has been very hard to find motivation to write, but hearing from all of you has given me so much encouragement. So thank you all for being wonderful, and I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it!

**Author's Note:**

> I adore all comments and kudos! I have decided to be honest, that sometimes responding to comments gives me anxiety for some reason. I do want people to know that I read all comments, often more than once, and cherish them. I will try to reply when my anxiety isn't too bad, because I really appreciate all of you!


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